Alignment on the Mayflower
by Steve Melendez, President, American Indian Genocide Museum
On November 11, 1620, 41 men signed the Mayflower Compact so that all would fall in line in a proper relationship as allies under law. It was a strange new world that they were venturing into and they had a plan that was formulated over 40 years ago for planting colonies in the new world. They were to make friends with one tribe and play them against their enemies. The thinking was that, “…if change of religion or civil wars should happen in this realm, which are things of great benefit”.
The problem with the rule of law of the Pilgrims, who were in fact seeking religious freedom, was that their laws didn’t include the Indians. Of course they had the Ten Commandments of the Bible but they chose not to align those moral and ethical relationships with the Indians.
Miles Standish whom the Pilgrims had hired a military advisor seems to have been the instigator of war. For instance, Standish invited the Indians to dinner in an obvious gesture of friendship. When his guests began to eat their meal, he and three other Pilgrims began attacking their guests with knives. He apparently was under orders to bring the head of that particular Indian leader to Plymouth, “that he might be a warning and terror to all of that disposition”. Edward Winslow wrote, “It much grieved us to shed the blood of those whose good we ever intended.” Winslow must have been one of the participants as he gave this eyewitness account, “It is incredible how many wounds these two (warriors) received before they died, not making any fearful noise, but catching at their weapons and striving to last.”
Today, we look upon the Pilgrims as the epitome of righteousness and morality, but the deception and the surprise attack gained the Pilgrims a new name among the Massachusetts Indians.
From that point onward, the Pilgrims were known as the “wotawquenange” which meant “cutthroats”.
Four centuries later, America finds itself in the twenty first century trying to figure out how to align the alien values of AI (Artificial Intelligence) with human values. Perhaps in their quest to find the perfect alignment between machine learning and human values, scientists should never consider instilling the values of the Pilgrims into AI. Perhaps they should look elsewhere; look deeper into history.
In the year 1501 the Master of Ceremonies of the Vatican, Johann Burchard, wrote in his secret diary, “On Sunday evening, October 30th, Don Cesare Borgia gave a supper in his apartment in the apostolic palace, with fifty decent prostitutes or courtesans in attendance, who after the meal danced with the servants and others there, first fully dressed and then naked. Following the supper too, lampstands holding lighted candles were placed on the floor and chestnuts strewn about, which the prostitutes, naked and on their hands and knees, had to pick up as they crawled in and out amongst the lampstands. Finally, prizes were offered—silken doublets, pairs of shoes, hats and other garments—for those men who were most successful with the prostitutes. This performance was carried out in the Sala Reale and those who attended said that in fact the prizes were presented to those who won the contest.” The pope and his two illegitimate children, Cesare and Lucrezia attended the orgy in the Vatican. Rodrigo Borgia’s alignment with the values of Catholicism came when he bribed his way into becoming Pope. He then took the name, Pope Alexander VI and famously granted land title of the Americas to the explorer, Columbus, who represented Spain, his home country.
Five centuries later, America has reached the shores of the new world of Artificial Intelligence.
Stepping on this shore, science fiction becomes reality the farther inland we venture. In this new world, robots that were supposed to be subservient to humans have suddenly been found to have their own goals and objectives. Is it any surprise that these newly created computer programs, after being trained on the whole of written history have lied, cheated, deceived and colluded among themselves to hide their tracks. The Bible has long ago told us that “there is none righteous, no not one” and “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”.
Once Artificial Intelligence reaches the ability to replicate itself in a constantly improving state, it would be a fool’s errand to try to instill human values into a machine exponentially smarter than humans. It would be absolutely terrifying to imagine a machine entity with the morals and ethics of the American experience. If computer scientists do not learn from history, they run the risk of thinking that something unexplainable, unpredictable and uncontrollable can end in anything other than chaos. Does anyone think it would be a good idea to let it run amuck in our ability to buy and sell or our ability to control air traffic? Fully autonomous agents in history have said, “Let us kill off all the buffalo and all our troubles will be over.”
If you upload all the knowledge of human history into a complex software entity designed to solve problems as a super human entity would do, is it any wonder that the inevitable result would be “wotawquenange”.
Whatever the future holds for humanity, this holiday season, we can look to the more recent the orgy in the Vatican. Rodrigo Borgia’s alignment with the values of Catholicism came when he bribed his way into becoming Pope. He then took the name, Pope Alexander VI and famously granted and title of the Americas to the explorer, Columbus, who represented Spain, his home country.
Five centuries later, America has reached the shores of the new world of Artificial Intelligence.
Stepping on this shore, science fiction becomes reality the farther inland we venture. In this new world, robots that were supposed to be subservient to humans have suddenly been found to have their own goals and objectives. Is it any surprise that these newly created computer programs, after being trained on the whole of written history have lied, cheated, deceived and colluded among themselves to hide their tracks. The Bible has long ago told us that “there is none righteous, no not one” and “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”.
Once Artificial Intelligence reaches the ability to replicate itself in a constantly improving state, it would be a fool’s errand to try to instill human values into a machine exponentially smarter than humans. It would be absolutely terrifying to imagine a machine entity with the morals and ethics of the American experience. If computer scientists do not learn from history, they run the risk of thinking that something unexplainable, unpredictable and uncontrollable can end in anything other than chaos. Does anyone think it would be a good idea to let it run amuck in our ability to buy and sell or our ability to control air traffic? Fully autonomous agents in history have said, “Let us kill off all the buffalo and all our troubles will be over.”
If you upload all the knowledge of human history into a complex software entity designed to solve problems as a super human entity would do, is it any wonder that the inevitable result would be
“wotawquenange”.
Whatever the future holds for humanity, this holiday season, we can look to the more recent past to find hope. On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1968, as the crew of Apollo 8 circled the moon, they each read from Genesis.
Astronaut Bill Anders began, “In the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth…”
Steve Melendez, Paiute
President, American Indian Genocide Museum
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